Why 'Parks and Recreation' tackled digital privacy in its final season

Pawnee, the town at the center of NBC's Parks and Recreation, has in 7 seasons never been the type of town to turn down something sweet. And there was little reason to believe the offer of free WiFi from Gryzzl — a fresh and flashy tech company — was anything but a sweet deal.

Flash forward a few years, to 2017, when the current season of the show is set. Things became, to say the least, a little rotten.

Yes, the town had their free Wifi, tablets, and the latest and greatest tech there was to offer. But by that time, we learn, they had also gotten themselves into a digital privacy nightmare.

An example of the terms it turns out they'd agreed to? "... as you know, the cameras on your phones are always on, whether you're using them or not."

April and her ultra-cool tablet.

No, the Gryzzl employee was not joking. But Parks and Recreation is one of the funniest shows on television, so how did they find themselves tackling an all but laughing matter on the final season?

The answer lies with creator Mike Schur, whose fascination with digital privacy led to a season-starting arc that was all at once relevant, insightful, all around scary, and, above all, hilarious.

"It's very interesting and far more complex of an issue than can be dealt with in a single episode of network television or even an entire season of network television," Schur tells Mashable. "It just seemed like the thing that was the most worth talking about of all the issues that are out there right now.

It's always been Parks' method of operation to take topical issues and turning them into stories told in the capsule of Pawnee — "Everytown, USA," says Schur. (Remember that filibuster at Town Hall?)

When it came time to break the story for the final season, Schur says there was little debate in his mind that they should tackle the issue of digital privacy.

"I watched — like a lot of people did — that 60 Minutes report on Amazon and their plan to have drone deliveries and the only thought I had in my mind was, 'Oh, this is the beginning of the end,'" he says. "When the Earth is a scorched husk and the aliens stop here in 2 million years and they dig up the records of what happened, they're going to say, 'It started when a book store started flying robots around to deliver books to people.'"

That's "a slight exaggeration," he admits, but his discomfort with the development launched many discussions he began having with others about the issue. From there, the news cycle — with studio hacks and nude photo leaks — only fueled the fire inside of him. "This stuff is real, vital, important and worth discussing on the show," he says.

Enter Pawnee and, for the purposes of this particular story, Gryzzl, a mega-company that the writers created to represent a host of tech companies — Google, Facebook, Amazon, et. al.

Ben and Leslie meet with Gryzzl employees in a recent episode of 'Parks and Recreation.'

Image: Greg Gayne/NBC

The important part of introducing Gryzzl for Schur, though, was making sure they weren't overt, ominous baddies. Because, "I believe, that the companies who are designing this technology are not inherently evil ... if you could give them truth serum, I think they would say, 'Yeah, we're trying to make life easier for people.'"

But his goal with telling Pawnee's experience was to highlight the trade-off of just that — the use of privacy as currency.

"I don't think they're evil, I don't think they're bad. That's why when we tried to paint the company and the people who represent the company [the way we did]; we wanted them to have this sort of messianic zeal," he says.

Last week's episode, which saw Leslie Knope and Co. find some common ground in their battle against Gryzzl for a large plot of land, was essentially the end of the arc. As Schur says, the show has spoken its piece and hopefully spurred discussion.

But they didn't want to make the episode the end of Gryzzl itself or sever the town's ties with their ultra-cool tech because that wouldn't be realistic.

"It was important to us when we wended the arc that it not end in a way where the multi-billion dollar messianic tech company was like, 'You know what? You're right; we're not going to do this anymore,'" he says. "That seemed very disingenuous and silly."

What will continue, though? The fun references to 2017 pop culture and tech that have peppered the season thus far. They wrote, Schur jokes, "10,000 of those jokes," but ultimately decided to use them wisely.

"We sprinkle them lightly, like bacon bits on a salad. You don't want the salad to just become all bacon."

Mashable
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